In large systems where probability and statistics are the tools of choice to analyze system behavior, it’s inevitable that we come across combinatorial calculations that require us to compute large factorials. With sufficiently large numbers, it becomes impractical for computers to perform those factorial operations in the way that you and I might do them. Instead, it becomes significantly more feasible to employ approximations such as Stirling’s approximation in order to get results that are very accurate without being as computationally intensive.

As I’m sure you all know, it’s illegal to start a dev blog without titling the first post “Hello World.” So here I am to pay my dues. This is the first of (hopefully) many posts where I’ll explore a variety of topics, mostly in the intersection of math and computer science. I’ve found that writing about a topic is a powerful way to improve my understanding of it, and I intend to use this blog to take full advantage of that fact.